


We're Just Ordinary and Forever

by Quinntessentially



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Second Kiss, rolls right off the tongue, trapped in a closet at a house party and requiring your coworker/crush to rescue you AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23469184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially
Summary: Pat's life has been complicated as of... oh, the last week. Possibly kissing his friend and coworker was not a good plan.More simple are the reasons he's ended up hiding in a closet in Jenna's room while the party passes him by. Leaving the closet is probably going to be more complicated than entering it was, especially because said coworker is really the only one who knows he's here.There are probably better solutions to this problem than Pat's going to find.
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	We're Just Ordinary and Forever

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to a thing i wrote in one sitting as a distraction from the other thing i'm writing that's going less well. hope everyone reading this is doing well. the title is from 17776, an excellent thing that made me cry twice while reading it.

Pat doesn’t know what he’s doing here. It’s stuffy, and cramped, and some good dress shirts are brushing the top of his head, because for some reason he decided that someone’s closet was a good place to be right now.

It sucks in here, but it does not suck nearly as much as the party going on outside of this closet. He though he had the energy for it, y’know? He’s been doing good, interacting with people in a reasonable capacity, and now he’s hiding in a closet.

Fuck, it’s late. It’s Jenna’s house and she doesn’t really have a spare bed/couch/sleeping surface, but Pat’s not sure if he’s good to go home right now.

The door of the bedroom creaks open, and Pat’s body stills without his permission. He starts counting breaths, because otherwise he’ll forget to breathe at all. 

And he had been doing _so well_ with his mental health shit-melange. The person shuts the door behind them, flops on the bed with a sigh. It’s Jenna.

So now Pat’s got a decision: tell her she’s got an anxious weirdo hiding in her closet, or wait it out and pray she leaves.

Given that he’s an anxious weirdo, Pat opts for the latter. It’s a fairly spacious closet, honestly, and he doesn’t have work tomorrow. Of course, neither does Jenna, but… well Pat doesn’t have a good reply to that one. Maybe he’ll sneak out while she sleeps or something.

It’s kind of hard to tell how much time passes when you’re hiding in a closet in someone’s room with a quickly-dying phone, but it’s probably been a couple hours when Pat’s screen lights up with a text. It’s from Brian, because his damn luck, yeah? You flee a party because seeing your coworker apparently now sends you into an anxiety-spiral, and he’s still considerate enough to send you a “hey, you get home safe?” text.

Pat wonders what the etiquette is for texting your coworker-crush-whom-you-definitely-almost-kissed-once… who you have kissed once now, actually.

Kinda the crux of the issue. 

“Fuuuuuck,” Pat says, and gently thunks his head against the back wall of the closet. Well, if there’s anyone who can help him out of this stupid-ass situation, it’s Brian.

_Funny you should ask if I got home_, texts Pat. _I… may be trapped in Jenna’s closet._

_what pls explain_, responds Brian.

_the party was getting too loud or w/e and i needed a minute to myself so i ended up hiding in the closet and now jenna is here asleep on the bed._ It sounds a little stupider when Pat types it out, but he doesn’t think he’d be physically capable of just… waking Jenna up.

_the party’s not going on anymore??_

Pat cocks his head, listens as closely as he can. It’s pretty damn silent, but he ended up here because it was quiet in the first place. He texts, _i think it petered out like half an hour ago? jenna’s been asleep for a while. also it’s like 2 a.m. and we’re all adults_

_speak for yourself_, Brian replies immediately. _also can you just sneak out or wake her up or something_

_i have thought of that_. Pat shifts around, straightens one of his legs to stop it cramping. _i don’t know if i can rn. not doing too great._

_hence the closet hiding?_ Brian says, and Pat can imagine his sympathetic sigh. 

_hence the closet hiding_, Pat says in return. There’s a gap in Brian’s texts, and Pat takes the opportunity to grimace at his phone’s battery percentage and also pity himself slightly. 

Pat’s phone screen lights up again. _ok ok i have an Excellent bad idea._

_oh?_

_i show up at jenna’s appt. i ring the doorbell or knock or whatever until she gets up. *you* get up while she’s at the door and fake like you fell asleep somewhere else in her house. we both go home. _

_brian_, Pat says, _you’re a genius._

_be there in ten,_ says Brian. _:D_

Pat’s brain finally catches up with the proceedings and… he may have just traded one problem for another. He may have some trouble keeping up with the standard Pat-Brian double act given that he’s real fucked up over Brian.

There’s probably a better way for Pat to phrase that, but what the fuck else is he gonna call how he’s feeling? Half the fault is his, sure, for keeping most of a crush-flame burning for Brian for, like, a year, but it’s also half Brian’s fault for playing up his coy “oh wouldn’t it be so fun to stick it to the man by kissing” shit in the Polygon studios, where they _work_. 

Okay, it’s probably mostly Pat’s fault for falling for it. Brian’s never not going to be out of his league, and what the fuck does it matter if he kisses you back if, after said kiss, he stops looking you in the eye for a full three days. 

This party was the first time they’ve spoken in almost a week. Which isn’t that much time, really, but the way it was _pointed_… stung a little. Pat’s not at all sure why Brian texted him tonight. 

He’ll find out in—fuck, his phone is officially dead. He’ll find out in some number of minutes. 

When the doorbell rings, it snaps Pat out of his fugue staring into the dark. Jenna turns over, snorts slightly in her sleep. The doorbell rings again, loudly, and Brian’s probably going to start banging on the damn thing next time. 

Fuckin’ lucky that Brian didn’t have to get buzzed in, but small blessings. Jenna finally gets out of bed, and her footsteps approach the door. 

Pat creeps out of the closet, carefully shuts the door behind him, tiptoes out into the hall. Plausible places for him to have fallen asleep… fuck it, he’ll just come in from the living room and say he passed out in the corner. He grabs his jacket on the way to where he hears voices and sees light shining in from the doorway.

Jenna and Brian are talking across the threshold when Pat walks up, fully aware he looks like shit. 

“Um. Hi, Pat,” says Brian, doing a great job of looking startled and slightly uncomfortable. 

Jenna whips around. “What the fuck? I mean, hi Pat, but also, what the fuck?”

Pat grimaces, shrugs, looks apologetic, hopes he’s covered the appropriate emotion bases. “I think I fell asleep in the living room at like two? I was exhausted today, so I guess I just… passed out. I’m fuckin’ sorry, though.”

“I… it’s fine, but would you mind terribly if I kicked you out now?” Jenna looks sheepish, but Pat’s more than willing to roll with her on this one. 

“No not at all. It’s a lucky break that Brian showed up for the both of us.” Pat edges his way to stand next to Brian outside. 

Brian laughs at that. “Yeah, I just thought I forgot my good jacket. It’s not here though, sooooo, God knows where it is.” He runs a hand through his hair, and his smile is nervous.

“We should get out of your hair,” says Pat, and he pulls Brian along with him. “Good night!”

“Good night,” Jenna says from her door, and a yawn cracks her face.

The walk out of Jenna’s complex is tense, but could be more tense. They get down to the sidewalk, breath misting in the air, when Brian says, “I probably owe you an apology.”

“It’s fine, I owe you one too.” Pat pauses. “That one’s your car, right?”

“Yeah,” Brian says. “To the car thing, not the apology thing. Because, with the kissing thing, right, I wanted to, I just didn’t have my head on right about it. It’s like, you’re all the marbles, and I’m, y’know, fuck. Let me start over. I’m saying this out of order.”

“You don’t need to try and let me down easy,” Pat says. “It can be a one-time thing, and we gave it time, and it can be all over. I don’t want… I value our friendship a fuckton, and if kisisng me was a mistake, we’ll move past it.”

“This is why I needed to start from the beginning!” Brian stops and turns to stand face to face, grasp Pat’s hand in two of his own, then visibly realizes they are still kind of in the street. “Wait, let me turn on the car and get the heating started.”

Pat dutifully waits.

Brian breathes out, and speaks. “I wanted to kiss you so much, Patrick. I have wanted to kiss you for a while. I was getting messed up about it because I tend to jump into relationships slightly too hard for most people. So I kissed you and then I needed some time to think about it. But I figured that holding myself back from this because I was worried I would like it _too_ much was stupid, so… here I am.”

“I’d kind of like to kiss you again,” says Pat.

“Me too.” Brian’s already leaning in a little bit, eyes on Pat’s.

So, on the sidewalk just outside of Jenna’s entirely average apartment complex, Pat kisses Brian for the second time. It’s not magical. Sparks don’t fly. But Pat likes Brian a lot, and he figures that Brian probably likes him back a lot.

They’re both a couple of anxious guys, and Pat’s certain more stupid lack-of-communication shit will happen.

But he’s certain of Brian. He’s certain that they’ll make it work together.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed <3 leave a comment or a kudos if you feel so inclined.


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